015/15 Revised Subdivision and Stability Amendments Agreed

“Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Construction (SDC),

2nd session, 16-20 February 2015″

Proposed amendments to SOLAS chapter II-1 on subdivision and damage stability were agreed by the Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Construction (SDC), which was meeting for its second session, for submission to the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC), with a view of approval by MSC 95 in June 2015 and subsequent adoption.

The focus of the current revision is to revise and update subdivision and damage stability regulations*, in view of experience gained with the harmonized probabilistic concept for cargo and passenger ships which entered into force in 2009.

The harmonized SOLAS regulations on subdivision and damage stability, as contained in SOLAS chapter II-1, are based on a probabilistic concept, which uses the probability of survival after collision as a measure of ships’ safety in a damaged condition. The current revision of the regulations has taken into account a number of recent studies, such as the EU-funded GOAL based Damage Stability project (GOALDS), FLOODSTAND​ and EMSA 2.

Work on the revision of the required subdivision index “R” for new passenger ships, taking into account the number of people on board a ship, will continue at SDC 3, in January 2016, in view of the need for further input from the validation of the results of the EU-funded EMSA 3 project. The required subdivision index “R” is a formula used to determine the probability of survival of a ship.